A crazy man called Joe

This weekend we drove over 500 miles with a toddler to attend the wedding of Joe and Katie Fredrick. There’s a lot of people we wouldn’t make that much effort for but Joe Fred (as he is known) is a very special friend to us. (We don’t know Katie as well but from what we know of her she is absolutely brilliant fun and a wonderful match for Joe.)

We first met Joe Fred back in 2011 when he came to Liverpool for Uni. 2011 was the year we got married and during that year we were running a group called studio which was for people who went to our church and were interested in the arts. We mainly went to a load of different arts events together, a lot of them were questionable, one of them once involved a performance piece where a woman was wearing absolutely nothing but a pair of red heels and a rubber horse’s head. It was through going to these random things that we got into the Liverpool alternative comedy scene, which we’re still involved with.

Joe is one of the funniest people ever to be around, he is full of crazy ideas and is not afraid to be a non-conformist. Maybe that’s why we get on well. He also loves a deep discussion and cannot be bothered with small talk. Joe and I share a love of bargains and living frugally. In my student days I once lived on £5 a week for food for a month. Joe went through a stage of trying to live without money by trying to do everything for swaps, he managed to get a gym to give him free membership by making them a promotional video, I think he did the same with a pizza place. He would go to far away weddings without booking himself overnight accommodation and then blagging his way in to sleep in other couples en-suite bathrooms.

I love it when people just drop in at our house unannounced and he did that a lot. Sometimes it was when he was just walking past. Once he was locked out and ending up sleeping on our sofa bed and once he phoned us to say “could I use your microwave? I’ve been trying to defrost my mince in a tumble dryer but it’s not really working.”

Joe wearing a suit jacket, a hoody and shorts, carrying a saw and methylated sprits.

One of the best parties I ever went to was Joe Fred's no electricity party. He filled his and his next door neighbour's alley with candles and we had a stage made of bricks where our friend Alex played the cello and Joe performed with his acoustic rap band. I also did a breeze block sculpting workshop. I’d share a picture but only film photography was allowed.

2 years ago Joe got together with the lovely Katie, she was mad enough to consider living in a yurt in Kent with him. In the end they moved down there and are in the process of buying a house. (I know how normal of them, I’m sure they’ll make it wacky though.)

Joe is from a farming family so his wedding was farm themed. The wedding car was a tractor and the reception was in a barn. 

Not one of those posh converted barns that people pay a lot of money for. Their actual barn, with their actual dogs running around, made beautiful by Joe’s brother.  My favourite bit was when we were at the reception and they said "please welcome the bride and groom" and everyone looked at the entrance between the hay bales but then above the hay bales they appeared in the scooper bit of a digger.

We kept trying to teach Percy to say "Katie and Joe" but as he already knows another couple called "Katie and Mike" he kept saying that.

We had to do a lot of breaking up the journey for Percy. Before the wedding we stopped off at my parents house and at a random park in Leatherhead. After the wedding we got to see my Auntie Hilary and her family. Then we stopped at my favourite childhood park in Warwick and then at my parents house again, and I am writing this on the way back to Liverpool. Percy fell asleep in his normal way - chatting himself to sleep. Tonight he said "watch telly watch telly watch telly watch ...toes. where toes where toes.....granny. Ice cream." *a bit of crying* sleep.

Night night everyone.